


Like Memory, Echoing in the Halls

by bendingwind



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-04
Updated: 2010-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 22:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor never says goodbye and he never lets go. River and Amy find an abandoned room in the TARDIS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Memory, Echoing in the Halls

They found it on accident, looking for the Doctor one day when he disappeared after a particularly nasty run-in with a Nestene Consciousness. It was no different from the room Amy slept in with her husband or the one that River claimed whenever she stopped by. Here was the door to the TARDIS' wardrobe; here was the door to the bath. Here was a beautifully carven chest at the foot of the large soft bed—not like Amy or River's rooms, but not what they would have wanted anyway. And here was a dent in the soft pink comforter, fresh and still a little warm, and here was the mark where a hand had gently swept dust from the headboard.

Here was a painting from Kullikor—that famed planet of artisans, with the Doctor's past self next to a beautiful blonde girl—that River picks up and gently caresses before returning it to its place. Here is a starry-jeweled necklace that Amy cannot quite bring herself to touch.

"Her name was Rose," River whispered into the air, and Amy turned away.

Here was a shoe, a little worn on the sole, and there on the side was a drop of Giyasi nectar, a wine River had always wanted to try. Here was an eyelash that should have been cleaned away long ago, left in peace as if the woman who had lived here might return at any moment. Here was a bottle of nail-polish in a brand that Amy herself had once used. And here was a journal, half-hidden beneath the mattress, not as worn or as wise as River's but just as beloved.

"Who was she?" Amy asked, and if her voice shook ever so slightly, River was kind and didn't acknowledge it.

Here was a forgotten tube of plain lip balm, so different from the shaded lipstick both women wore. Here was a hairbrush left in a bedside table drawer, blonde strands of hair still tangled in its bristles. Here was the spot where a button to clean should be, wall scarred with its removal. Here was a patch of wallpaper stained with salty tears. Here was a scrap of paper, a note that could never be a proper goodbye, crumpled and stained and torn on the floor. Here are the signs of the Doctor's heartbreak, scattered across an abandoned room.

"Someone like us," River answered, quietly so as not to break the spell. "He loves us so much, you know. There are a dozen rooms like this in the TARDIS; he never says goodbye and he never lets go."

And then words were no longer quite enough, and the sense of trespassing in a forbidden, beloved place caught up with them, and they crept from the room to the solemn silence of the library, to wait for their Doctor.

They never mentioned it again, but neither of them forgets.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the spoiler_song ficathon.


End file.
